Hitchcocks North By Northwest: The Birth of the Modern Action Film

In chapter two of The Cultures of American Film, the main focus is the establishment of studios. As demand for films rose in the early 1900’s, production companies needed to expand; this lead to the creation of large scale studios.

After a long day of pondering who the murderer was, Officer Darren decided to go out for a drink at the local pub. He saw Mr. Craill across the bar, and watched as he ate a huge meal consisting of a hamburger, fries, beers, steak, and mashed potatoes. It was quite peculiar that Mr. Craill was able to afford such a meal, because he did only have a part time job at a small town burger joint. Several things seemed suspicious that day about Mr. Craill, especially the fact that the gate that separated Craill’s yard from Dorothy’s yard was open along with Craill and Dorothy’s back

This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.

The characteristics of “Western” is recognizable in literary works. The specific scenario of “Western” works implies an imagery of cowboys with their typical boots, hats, and horses, riding around their town and embarking their mission to fight against the outlaws. The cowboy symbolizes a heroic individual going out their way to keep their environment safe. Nonetheless, this description of cowboys became the epitome figure of “Western”. However, through the years, “Western” has evolved and diversified in film and literature. In the early 1930s, Western became a revolutionary art form. Ultimately, as time progressed the transition from the classic cowboy transcended into the modern day “gangster”.

In 1959- early 1960 five directors released debut feature length films that are widely regarded as heralding the start of the French nouvelle vague or French New Wave. Claude Chabrols Le Beau Serge (The Good Serge, 1959) and Les Cousins (The Cousins, 1959) were released, along with Francois Truffauts Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows, 1959), Jean-Luc Godards A bout de souffle (Breathless, 1960) and Alain Resnais Hiroshima mon amour (Hiroshima my love, 1959). These films were the beginning of a revolution in French cinema. In the following years these directors were to follow up their debuts, while other young directors made their first features, in fact between 1959-63 over 170 French directors made their debut

1. Throughout the story suspense is aroused and maintained excellently. This is achieved by the character the author creates. Mr. Martin is characterized as a neat and cautious man, who never took a smoke or a drink in his life. Our suspense is aroused when the author states that it has been “a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows”. This arouses our suspense because we are told Mr. Martin is planning to murder this woman. The suspense is maintained with Mr. Martin’s thoughts. We as an audience are given his thoughts through the use of the 3rd person omniscient point of view. His thoughts are mostly on the issue on his dislike of Mrs. Barrows. Because of this, he

A film genre is a motion picture category based on similarities in either the narrative elements or the emotional response to the film. While films have at least one major genre, there are a number of films that are considered crossbreeds or hybrids with three or four coinciding genre or sub-genre types that they can be identified with them and most can be filed into categories that are easily recognizable to audiences (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 1998, p. 4.1). However, ever so seldom a film comes along that breaks free of its invisible bounds of genre and it leaves the audiences confused about the actual existence of genre. One such film is a film that most are familiar with Steven Spielberg’s classic Saving Private Ryan.

Andre Dubus’s story, “Killings,” is complicated; it is fraught with hard moments of loneliness, heartache, violence, adultery and murder. For Matt Fowler loneliness and heartache over the murder of his son drove him to seek revenge against his son’s killer Richard Strout by seeking the help of his friend Willis who sympathized with Matt. In the case of Richard Strout the heartache from his wife’s divorce made him jealous of the man she was now with. He wanted to continue to be with her and if he could not have her for himself then no one else could.

In the movie “North by Northwest,” by Alfred Hitchcock he shows how a film can have an influence on a historical event. Alfred Hitchcock was born August 13, 1899 and died April 29, 1980 being sometimes referred as “The Master Of Suspense.” During Hitchcock’s career some major historical events took place, in which he used his films to reflect and sometimes respond to those events. Hitchcock’s films both reflected and sometimes also intervened in contemporary social and political events during his career.

The movies under this category have attracted the attention of many reviewers because of some reasons. The films are widely appreciated because of their wider exposition of culture as well as sophisticated and rich subject matter. The show of culture and emotional expression that the movie contains has drastically changed the description of the category from action films to relationship film. Additionally, the movies

The producers will develop a test and the audience will tell the producers whether it is something they want to see or they are not going to see. This can affect the next text to be produced in an attempt to conform to the audience demands. Looking at the development of different types of genres and the development of films within the same genre, it’s possible to look at similarities and differences and identify changes in society and audience ideologies and tastes.

In the meantime, Travis and Harrison embrace their new “toy” – by driving at will, and playing with the arsenal of weaponry found in the back seat. However, they eventually hear a noise in the trunk – which turns out to by a shackled, bleeding man (Shea Whigham) that the sheriff was in the process of disposing of. And, when he frees himself, it sets up a showdown between the vengeful man and the en route sheriff.

Genre theory is used to study films and put them into a classification so that audiences know what type of film it is before they see it. Genres are categories based on the story of the film, sometimes the actors and actresses, or even the directors. All films fall under a genre or sub-genre category. Romantic Comedy is an example of a genre which is light-hearted, humorous story involving people in love, sometimes overlapping with subgenres such as screwball comedy teen comedy, or gross-out comedy. ( Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014, table 4.1). This paper will focus on the romantic comedy genre and movie Rocky. It will take a better look at the specific conventions of this genre and how this movie fits the gangster genre.

Sheridan first introduces Gerry as a victim, unjustly accused of crime he did not commit. The interrogation scene is an excellent example of how a range of viewing conventions; Camera works, music and juxtaposition, come together to shape a point-of-view. Sheridan uses dialogue and films through a peephole to symbolise the terrifying isolation that Gerry is face with, as Detective

Many movies or stories are fit into a specific category. For example, there is comedy,